As part of Columbia’s annual World Leaders Forum, the President of the Marshall Islands, His Excellency Christopher Jorebon Loeak, gave a speech titled “Marshalling Climate Leadership” on Wednesday September 25.

Loeak’s talk focused on climate change and the risks it poses for his nation, which is made up of 1,000 individual islands and 24 coral atolls—together comprising a land area about one-third the size of Manhattan. The islands are ranked as the globe’s most vulnerable nation in terms of the threat of flooding due to climate change, since they lie at an average of two meters above sea level and their major urban centers are at one meter.

Michael Gerard, a professor at Columbia Law who works on on climate policy and co-authored the recent book, “Threatened Island Nations,” introduced the President. Columbia’s Center for Climate Change Law, located at the Law School and headed by Gerrard, has been working with Loeak and the Marshall Islands on the legal issues that arise when a nation is threatened by submersion.

“For some, climate change is an important issue, but one of many and distant threats. In my country, climate change has already arrived,” Loeak said. “The global community is not listening. We cannot lose our homes, livelihood, security, history, and culture.”

In the past year, the Islands have already faced multiple crises related to climate change. The northern atolls experienced severe drought last spring that left 6,000 people with less than one liter of water per day and caused widespread agricultural failure and disease. In June, flooding caused by swells from a storm in combination with unusually high tides, destroyed parts of the capital, Majuro, including the airport runway. The Marshall Islands face a “dual threat” from climate change: in addition to rising sea level, warmer ocean temperatures are also causing ocean acidification, which endangers coral reefs.

Despite these pressing threats, Loeak emphasized that his people are not looking to leave the islands: “The majority of the people believe that it doesn’t matter if the islands are submerged. They will go with the islands. That’s also my belief. Nobody wants to leave the island. If water comes, it comes.”

In collaboration with nearby island nations, the people of the Marshall Islands are seeking to mobilize the worldwide community to take action. “We must urgently unleash a global movement,” Loeak said.

The Marshall Islands have started this movement by transitioning their own society away from the use of fossil fuels. They have installed solar panels across all of the islands and have the goal of reducing emissions 40% from 2009 levels by the end of the decade. Loeak explained that he is demonstrating a simple message to larger nations: “If we can reduce emissions, so can you.”

The Marshall Islands united with the leaders of 12 other Pacific island nations and presented the Majuro Declaration, a document that calls for “urgent action” on climate change, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the end of September. Ki-Moon praised the leadership of the island nations and emphasized the importance of taking action, an exciting and hopeful step in the political dialogue.

Loeak concluded his talk on a somber, though encouraging, note: “While countries like mine will be the first to go, we are only the front line. This is a war on nothing less the future of humanity. It will take all of us.”

Elana Shanti Sulakshana is currently a first-year student in Columbia College. She plans to major in Sustainable Development and Economics.

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